Archive for the ‘Russia’ Category

Just as the Jewish Chronicle may have itself been guilty of anti-Semitism by denying that one of the signatories to the letter of support for Corbyn and the Labour party sent to the Sunday Times, so other members of the right may also be aiding anti-Semitism by their repeated use of the conspiracy theory that the Jews are the real force behind capitalism.

Three days ago, on 16th March 2019, David Rosenberg of the Jewish Socialist Group, an ardent campaigner himself against racism, anti-Semitism and thus Zionism, put up on his blog an article discussing this very point, which had been published that day in the Morning Star. He began by commenting on the statement by Blairite Labour MP Siobhain McDonagh to John Humphrys on Radio 4 that ‘anti-capitalist politics are at the root of anti-Semitism’. Rosenberg states that it’s an appalling slur against everyone fighting against the poverty and inequality of Tory Britain, but it also revealed that the Right, even those, who think they are pro-Jewish, still believe anti-Semitic stereotypes, as McDonagh obviously thinks that Jews are rich capitalists.

He goes on to discuss how this is at the heart of the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that sees the Jews as using their wealth to control the banks and governments. A theory that was pushed by Henry Ford, an Episcopalian Christian and founder of the car manufacturer that bears his name, in his paper the Dearborn Independent. Ford believed that the Jews caused World War I, and published the infamous Tsarist forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. And someone else who believed this poisonous nonsense, and was Ford’s biggest fan in Europe, was one A. Hitler.

Rosenberg goes on to discuss how there are Jews, who identify the Jewish community with capitalism, banking and property and so accuse the anti-capitalist left as anti-Semites. He then cites Richard Mather, who claimed in an article in the Jerusalem Post that ‘the Labour party’s call for the seizure of property’ was part of ‘anti-Semitic class warfare’, and pieces written by the editor of the Jewish Chronicle, Stephen Pollard, and one of his journos, Alex Brummer, who both claimed that Corbyn was an anti-Semitic threat to Jewish capitalists, with Pollard harking back to Corbyn’s attack on the bankers that caused the financial crash ten years ago. Rosenberg tweeted in response to this nonsense that of Pollard and Corbyn, one of them thought all bankers were Jews. And it wasn’t Corbyn.

He reinforces this point by describing how Arnold Brown, a Jewish comedian, who came from a poor background in Glasgow, tore up the floorboards at his home one day after the other schoolkids told him that all Jews were rich. He also makes the point that the racist Right use the stereotype of the rich Jewish capitalist to divert popular anger away from capitalism to particular Jewish figures, who are supposed to be responsible for its ills, such as Rothschild and Goldman Sachs to George Soros today, demonised by Trump and a slew of extreme right-wing regimes because he funds agencies for migrants and refugees and anti-government demonstrations.

But he also makes the point that this stereotype also erases the strong history of Jewish left-wing anti-capitalist activism, writing

When McDonagh, Mather and Pollard repeat stereotypes of Jews as capitalists, they not only feed these conspiracy theories, but also erase an outstanding tradition of Jewish anti-capitalism. People know the famous Jewish revolutionaries, like Marx, Trotsky, Rosa Luxemberg, Emma Goldman, but it was in mass Jewish workers’ movements such as the Bund, and among the Jews so numerous in socialist and communist parties over the last 120 years, that anti-capitalism was ingrained. In 1902, a Russian Jewish bookbinder, Semyon Ansky, wrote a Yiddish song to honour the Bund’s struggles for social justice. The movement adopted it as its anthem. One powerful verse translates as:

“We swear to the heavens a bloody hatred against those who murder and rob the working class. The Tsar, the rulers, the capitalists – we swear that they will all be devastated and destroyed. An oath, an oath, of life and death.”

He goes on to say that he is going that day to march and speak with the Jewish Socialist Group on a national demonstration in London against racism and Fascism, including the anti-Semitism that is rising in central and eastern Europe and Trump’s America with the Pittsburgh shooting. He concludes

At street level, far right organisations concentrate physical attacks more frequently on Muslims, Roma, migrants and refugees, but when they want to explain to their supporters who they believe holds power in the world they fall back on Jewish conspiracy theories as surely today as they did in the 1930s. The fight against antisemitism, Islamophobia and anti-migrant propaganda are absolutely linked and we must combat them together.

Absolutely. Rosenberg’s blog is particularly fascinating for the pieces he publishes about the Bund, the socialist party of the eastern European masses in the Russian Empire. It’s a history that I doubt many non-Jews know about, as the Yiddish-speaking communities the Bund represented were murdered by the Nazis. If people outside the Jewish community know about it at all, it’s probably because of the movement’s connection to the Russian Socialist movement. The Bund were, with the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks, part of the Russian Social Democratic Party, the parent organisation of the Russian Communists. It was their withdrawal from the party conference in 1909, when Lenin demanded that there should be no separate organisation for Jewish socialists, that made the Bolsheviks the majority faction and gave them their name, from ‘Bolshe’, the Russian word for bigger.

But the articles by David Rosenberg and other left-wing Jewish bloggers and vloggers reveal a rich, lost history of Jewish anti-capitalist struggle. One of the remarkable consequences of the anti-Semitism smears is that this history is being rediscovered and brought to public attention as Jewish Marxists and socialists refute these smears. Jon Pullman’s film, The Witchhunt, attacking these smears and particularly the libelous hounding of Jackie Walker, includes a brief mention of the Bund, including black and white footage of their demonstrations and banners. If Channel 4 had kept to its original charter as an alternative BBC 2, the Bund and its legacy would be a very suitable subject for a documentary. It could also easily be screened on BBC 4. But I doubt that this will ever happen because the stereotype of the rich Jew is too important a weapon against the anti-capitalist left for it to be refuted by such a thing as actual history.

And if left-wing Jewish history, like that of the Bund, is being forgotten, some contemporary works on the Jewish community may inadvertently reinforce the stereotype of the rich Jew. Back in the 1990s an aunt gave me a book about the Jewish community in Britain, The Club. It was a mainstream book by a very respectable mainstream publisher, but from what I can remember about it, it was about the elite section of British Jewish society, the top 100. I think it was written from an entirely praiseworthy standpoint – to celebrate Jewish achievement, and to how how integrated and indeed integral Jews were to British society and culture. But books like it can give an unbalanced picture of Jewish society in Britain by concentrating on the immensely wealthy and successful, and ignoring the ordinary Jewish folk, who live, work and whose kids go to school and uni with the rest of us, and whose working people marched in solidarity with us.

It’s fascinating and necessary that the history of Jewish socialism is being rediscovered, and that activists in the Bund’s tradition, like Rosenberg, continue to write, demonstrate and blog against racism and anti-Semitism as part of the real struggle by working people.

Fascism was, from its very origins in 1919 an aggressive, violent movement that sought to destroy and suppress its opponents. But the creation of the Fascist police state was only really created in November 1926 with the passage of the legge di pubblica sicurezza, or Public Safety Law. This was introduced by the former Nationalist politician Alfredo Rocco, who declared

The function of public security is no longer to be considered as something exceptional, in conflict with the dogma of individual liberty as the foundation and aim of society. It is, on the contrary, to be judged as one of the primary functions of the activity of the state…. It is therefore an activity whose exercise cannot be obstructed by absurd preconceptions.

This allowed the Fascist parties to arrest and send into internal exile and confinement people who were only suspected of subversion without legal representation or redress. And it followed legislation originally passed by the liberal Italian state, which Mussolini and his thugs had overthrown.

I found this description of the law, its effects and its liberal origins in Adrian Lyttelton’s The Seizure of Power: Fascism in Italy 1919-1929 (London: George Weidenfeld and Nicolson Lt: 2nd Edition 1987). pp. 298-9. After the above quotation from Rocco, Lyttelton writes

With this flat repudiation of all doctrines of natural law or individual rights went the abolition of all distinctions between the State as a permanent entity and the Government of the moment. The safety of Fascism and the safety of the State were treated as identical.

In accordance with these premises, all vestiges of the responsibility of the executive for its actions were annulled. The citizen was left without redress; the police were no longer required to produce reasons to justify the imposition of restrictions on liberty. The police authority, for example, enjoyed absolute discretion in granting authorization to form associations or to exercise certain professions: ‘consequently the citizen has no right to obtain authorization, or – having obtained it – to keep it.

The institution of confino made possible the internal exile and confinement to an enforced domicile, for a period of up to five years, of those suspected of the intention of engaging in subversive activity. The procedures governing the operation of the confino were especially arbitrary. the decision to commit suspects to the confino was taken by a provincial committee presided over by the Prefect; the only appeal was to a committee headed by the Under-Secretary of the Ministry of the Interior. The accused could be arrested at once, before their appeal was heard, and they were not allowed either to employ a lawyer or to summon witnesses in their defence. The jurisdiction of the magistracy was entirely excluded. Moreover these unpredictable and arbitrary procedures gave an opportunity for the party to interfere. It was usually the party which denounced suspects, and on occasion local leaders, like Carlo Scorza in Lucca, used the mechanism of confino to deal with their personal enemies. it is true that regular imprisonment could not be inflicted by administrative order, as in some totalitarian regimes. The Special Tribunal set up to judge ‘crimes against the State’, which had the power to inflict the death penalty, preserved legal forms, even if the composition of the court made these a very slight safeguard.

Unfortunately the creation of the Police state in Italy was much assisted by the inadequacy of the guarantees for liberty provided under the parliamentary system. The Fascist regime was able to build upon established institutions and precedents. Confino itself was an inheritance from the Liberal State: though domicilio coatto, as it was then known, was originally intended for use against the Mafia, the camorra and brigandage, governments soon gave way to the temptation to use the weapon against political suspects. However under Giolitti the application of domicilio coatto had been confined to professional criminals. In other respects, too, the procedures of the Liberal state had left much room for arbitrary police action. The sweeping emergency measures of January 1925 were legitimized by the vague and undefined powers given to the Prefects under article 3 of the existing communal and provincial law. The power of fermo, or preventative arrest, had always been much abused, and the attempt of the 1912 penal code to introduce the rule of habeas corpus had not been a success; the police and other officials were in practice almost entirely immune from prosecution for excess or abuse of their powers. Even the sanctions of public opinion and parliamentary discussion, though effective in securing new political liberties after 1900, were usually powerless to check the more humdrum abuse of official authority. Nor can the trouble be traced exclusively to official attitudes, the truth is that to a vast number of the Italian people, especially in the backward rural areas, the informal exercise of power to keep the peace, based on tradition or practical intuition, appeared more comprehensible than the workings of thelaw, which were slow, cumbersome, and bore little relation to real needs.

This is very much, however, the kind of situation that may arise through the legislation the Tory -Lib Dem coalition signed in, which introduces secret courts. Similar legislation was also introduced, or mooted, by that famous Labour moderate and Centrist politician, Tony Blair. Under this legislation in the interests of national security you may be arrested without know the charges against you, and tried in a court from which the press and public have been excluded. You may not know who the witnesses are, and evidence may be withheld from you and your lawyers. It’s the kind of kangaroo court like the perverted judicial systems of Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia. And very similar to the quasi-judicial proceedings the Labour party has been using to throw out those accused of anti-Semitism. That passage describing the operation of a similar judicial system in Fascist Italy shows the immense dangers in giving such vast, arbitrary power to the police and the State.

We haven’t got to that stage quite yet, but the Fascist system’s precedents in the domicilio coatto of the liberal Italian state and its acceptance by a large section of the Italian public also shows how such repressive measures can be easily introduced to a public, which has been prepared for it by a relatively free state. Just as the introduction of the secret court legislation and the hysteria whipped up by the press about the threat of terrorism could easily prepare the British public for something much closer to the police states of Fascist Italy, Nazi German and Stalinist communism later.

By introducing and supporting secret courts, Blair, the Tories and the Lib Dems have shown that they are enemies of democracy. They have to be thoroughly rejected. If we want a genuinely free and democratic Britain, the only choice is to vote for a socialist Labour government under Jeremy Corbyn.

In this 17 minute long video from the left-wing vlogger Gordon Dimmack, he talks about John Cleese’s decision to move from the UK to the Caribbean. When the papers covered the story a month or so ago, they very much gave the impression that it was all about a feud between Cleese and the Beeb. Cleese was angry at the Corporation for not showing Monty Python and annoyed that it was no longer rated over here as one of the greatest comedies ever. In short, he was going because of personal bitterness.

That appears to be part of it, sure, but from this wider coverage it’s clear that there’s much more to it. Cleese is concerned about the massive corruption in British politics and the major part played in this by the press. Dimmack plays a clip from an interview Cleese gave to Emily Maitlis of Newsnight, in which he talks about how terrible and mendacious the press is. He supports his point by showing Maitlis a graph illustrating a study done by the EU into the trust the citizens of its countries have in their press. Of 33 countries, Britain comes 33rd, with only 23 per cent of Brits saying they trust their media.

That’s damning.

Maitlis tried to get round this by pointing to a statistical outlier, Albania, which is near the top of the list, where 98 per cent of its citizens believe their press to be trustworthy. Albania under Hoxha was a Stalinist dictatorship. After the Fall of Communism it became a mass of seething corruption which destroyed several governments as the economy collapsed through pyramid schemes. So it very probably doesn’t have a remotely trustworthy press. But Maitlis’ remark ignores the greater trust other, stable countries with a history of open, democratic politics, like the Netherlands, have in their media. When Maitlis tries to object to Cleese’s point that the British press is not trusted and untrustworthy, he just laughs in her face.

The conversation then moves on to Cleese’s complaints about Python, which Dimmack supports, although he says he like Ricky Gervaise’s latest comedy, Malcolm. Dimmack then moves to another interview Cleese gave, in which talked more about his departure from these isles. He was going first to Nepal to see the tigers, then going to do another tour of America before finally settling in Nevis, which he and his wife saw and fell in love with. He states that he’s leaving because it’s nearer to his daughter in Los Angeles, and that he does most of his business in America. But he’s also moving because he’s sick of the corruption in British society. He states that he was personally involved in British politics, first for proportional representation and then in the Leveson II inquiry. But these were stifled by the British press. He’s also critical about the banks and their destruction of the economy. He’ll still be interested in British politics, but he won’t return until we get a government that is serious about changing things in Britain for the better. This is possible, but he fears he’ll be away for some time.

To show how genuinely politically engaged Cleese is, Dimmack flashes up a couple of tweets from the great man about Russiagate and sources supporting his belief in Russian involvement in Trump’s election. Dimmack fully agrees with Cleese about the corruption of the lamestream media, and says he has tried to point him in the direction of people, who do tell the truth. Like Max Blumenthal about Venezuela, and Jimmy Dore. People Cleese could more easily contact in America. Dimmack admits that there’s hardly any chance that Cleese will read his tweets, as he’s got 597 million followers. But perhaps if enough people follow Dimmack and tweet to Cleese recommending he look at the above journos of the new media, this may change and Cleese will start supporting them. Which would be great, because Cleese’s support would obviously be highly influential. Dimmack states very clearly that he is trying to change the world, and if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem and should step away.

I don’t quite know what’s going on in Venezuela at the moment, but from the little I have seen on the alternative news channels it seems that the lamestream news are very definitely not telling us the truth. According to some of their reports, the ongoing campaign to topple Premier Maduro is just another case of the US engaging in regime change against a Latin American nation that refuses to accept its place in the American Empire.

In this clip, posted on YouTube by Philosoraptor on the 9th February 2019, Chris Williamson, the now-suspended MP for Derby, replies to Jon Snow about the crisis in the South American country. Snow argues that the chronic shortages and civil unrest are all the fault of Maduro’s regime. The sanctions imposed by America are quite correct, and so are the calls for Maduro to resign and hand over government by America, Britain and other nations.

Williamson begins by describing the British government’s recognition of Juan Guaido, Maduro’s rival, as a democratic outrage. He has never been elected head of the Venezuelan national assembly and he did not stand against Maduro in last year’s election. He also flatly contradicts another contributor to the programme, who claimed that the elections had been rigged. Williamson states that he has spoken to observers from 86 countries, who have said that it isn’t true. It’s supposedly impossible to rig the elections as each voter must bring ID and each vote is twinned with their fingerprint.

Snow then moves on to ask him how it is that one of the richest countries in Latin America is now bankrupt. Whose fault is that? Williamson replies that Venezuela has very real problems, but goes back to talking about the conduct of the elections. Snow talks over him, asking him ‘Whose fault it is?’ Williamson says he’ll come back to that, and states that Jimmy Carter called the Venezuelan elections the safest anywhere in the world. As for the fault for the country’s wretched state, Williamson explains that Maduro was dealt a very bad hand. He came into office when the price of oil had collapsed, the country was then hit with street violence by right-wing forces supported by the US. This was exacerbated by Barack Obama signing an executive order declaring that Venezuela posed an extraordinary threat to the US. And Donald Trump has ratched up the sanctions even further. A UN special Raporteur has said that the sanctions are illegal and could constitute a crime against humanity. Williamson goes to say that the UK ought to be pressing the US to withdraw the sanctions, but he is once again talked over by Snow.

Snow goes on to say that Venezuela is a country on its knees when it should be towering high, brought down by maladministration and protests, and asks him what his solution would be.

Williamson states that his solution would be that rather than behaving as Trump’s poodle, the UK should be calling on him to withdraw the sanctions and try to bring the factions around the table and reach an amicable solution. Maduro himself has called for talks to stop the violence and bring an end to its economic difficulties.

Snow then interrupts him, telling him that he’s talking as if it’s just Britain on its own. But Britain is joined by many other countries – Sweden, France, and others like Italy.

Williamson responds by pointing out the nations that are also supporting Venezuela, like Mexico. He corrects Snow on Italy, and Snow changes this and says ‘Spain’. Williamson goes on to mention Bolivia, Russia, China, Italy as supporting Maduro. It is ironic that Spain opposes Maduro, as when the Catalans declared their independence and had their referendum, the Spanish state sent in the troops and security service, meted out extreme violence on the Catalan people and put their leaders in jail. This hasn’t happened to Guaydo in Venezuela.

Snow then challenges him on the human rights record of China and Russia, two of the countries supporting Madura, to which Williamson responds by pointing once again to Mexico, Bolivia and Italy. Snow goes on to state that Williamson and Corbyn ‘are in a very nasty corner now’. He says once again that Venezuela’s terrible state is due to the people who ran it and the people who support it, and asks him if it isn’t time he changed sides. Williamson says that he won’t get behind Donald Trump, but is once again shouted over by Snow, who asks him if he’s getting behind Maduro’s gross human rights abuses. Williamson responds by saying that no-one is going to support human rights abuses, and they should be called out wherever they occur. But he goes on to tackle the media’s bias, saying they’ve been a bit ‘one-eyed’ in its reportage. He’s seen footage of government supporters beaten to death, set on fire and decapitated. This needs to be called out as well, but it is tacitly supported by the US, which is financing this kind of abuse.

Snow talks over him again, telling him that he will also see the three million refugees that Channel 4 has covered pouring into Columbia, and asks him what he has to say about them. Williamson replies by saying that people in Venezuela are understandably worried about their safety and are leaving the country. But in the past millions of people have travelled in the opposite direction from Columbia into Venezuela. Venezuelan society is divided. The poor working class and the Black community predominately support the Maduro government. The middle class and elites predominately do not. We need an end to the economic sabotage, an end to the sanctions from the United States, and we need the UK to use its good office to bring about a peaceful solution to stop it from escalating out of control. The United States actions in Latin America are appalling. They wanted to make the economy scream in Chile, and that’s what they’re doing in Venezuela. At which point Snow ends the conversation, telling him he’s had a good go to make his case.

It’s very clear from this interview where Snow’s personal sympathies lie and what his views are. But Williamson has a point. I’ve seen reports from sources like The Jimmy Dore Show, which state that some of the footage used of protests from the lamestream media is fake. An anti-Maduro demonstration, which supposedly was filmed in Venezuela, was actually staged in Columbia. As for America’s opposition to Maduro, some of this seems to come from the country’s defiance of US global economic policy. I think the country refused to get behind some of America’s demands for changes in global oil output. I also remember that they sided with Russia, Iran and several other countries in deciding to change from the Dollar to another currency as the medium of payment for oil. The petrodollar is the method by which America refinances its debts, and the moment that collapses a fair chunk of the American economy is destroyed. Hence some of the bitter opposition to Maduro and Obama’s declaration that Venezuela is a grave threat to American national security.

Quite apart from the fact that America’s long history of intervention in Latin America is appalling, with liberal and socialist regimes overthrown and brutal Fascist dictators installed in their place, all to protect American economic and corporate interests.

This interview also illustrates why the Blairites and the Israel lobby were so desperate to have Williamson suspended for supposed ‘anti-Semitism’. There’s an interesting piece by one of the journos in the alternative news media, that argues that the elite in this country hate Corbyn because he is the closest this country has to an anti-imperial candidate. His sympathies are for the poorer countries, abused and exploited by the Developed World. And so they’re determined to prevent him getting into power by any means necessary.

Williamson has been one of his staunchest supporters, and by standing up for the countries bullied and invaded by the US-led West, he too has become a target.

Tony Greenstein has today, 11th March 2019, put up a piece on his blog about the stupid, right-wing anti-Semitic conspiracy theories surrounding the billionaire financier George Soros. Soros is the man, who caused the collapse of the Pound in Black Wednesday in the 1990s back when John Major was running the country. He’s now a hate figure of both the anti-Semitic right and Israel and its supporters because he sponsors liberal organisations and pro-democracy groups through his Open Society Foundation. Viktor Orban and his vehemently anti-Semitic and racist Fidesz party hate him with a passion because he funds generally liberal organisations in Hungary. And Netanyahu and the Israelis also despise him, because he hates Zionism. Soros is a Jewish Hungarian, and Hungarian Jews were sold out during the Second World War by Rudolf Kasztner, the leader of the Hungarian Zionist organisation. Kasztner made a deal with the Nazis to have tens of thousands of Jews sent to the death camps, in exchange for some going to Israel. Soros, as part of his commitment to democracy, also funds liberal organisations in Israel, like the Human Rights organisation B’Tselem and Breaking the Silence. The latter is a organisation of Israeli veterans, who testify to the atrocities they’ve participated in and witnessed. Both the Israelis and the American and European Far Right demonise Soros using the old, anti-Semitic trope of the Jewish capitalist puppet master. Greenstein’s article describes the links between Orban and Netanyahu’s regimes, which are united in their hatred of the financier, and how the anti-Semitic trope used against Soros has been repeated in the British right-wing press, like the Scum and the Torygraph. The Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, which is fanatical in its attempt to find any signs of anti-Semitism amongst Corbyn and his supporters, defends these articles, stating that they’re not anti-Semitic, they’re just poorly-worded. It’s a massive piece of hypocrisy, as they would not have extended the same grace to anyone from the Left. Of course, the difference is that the Torygraph, unlike Corbyn, doesn’t support the Palestinians.

But some of the most interesting material in the article isn’t about Soros, but about the former Fox News presenter Glenn Beck. Beck’s a small-government Conservative, whose views are so right-wing that he seemed to see any kind of collectivism or state intervention as the thin end of Nazism or Stalinism. He was also so highly emotional, that in his broadcasts he’d become increasingly hysterical, until in some of them he’d start crying because ‘they’ would be coming for him when they finally set up their Communist, anti-Christ, one-world dictatorship. Greenstein’s article is interesting as it describes how Beck was eventually sacked by Fox because he made several programmes promoting anti-Semitic conspiracies theories about George Soros and Jewish international bankers. But this didn’t stop him being given a rapturous greeting when he visited Israel, including by vehemently anti-Christian Kahanist – Israeli Fascist – politicos. Greenstein writes

The same was true of Glenn Beck a Fox News presenter. Beck devoted his entire show to a conspiracy theory about bankers, including the Rothschilds and he hosted G. Edward Griffin, a conspiracy theorist who believes that the Protocols “accurately describes much of what is happening in our world today.”

Beck was eventually sacked from his job at Fox because of his increasingly crazy anti-Semitic conspiracy theories but not however before he had broadcast two programmes about Soros the‘puppet master‘.

On the June 4 Glenn Beck Program, Beck praised Elizabeth Dilling whose 1936 book, The Red Network: A “Who’s Who”and Handbook of Radicalism for Patriots, declared that ‘the problem of the large number of revolutionary Russian Jews in Germany doubtless contributed toward making Fascist Germany anti-Semitic.” Her belief that‘Talmudic Judaism is the progenitor of modem Communism and Marxist collectivism’is a classic Nazi theme. Dilling’s third book,The Octopus,published in 1940, emphasized the Jewish-communist conspiracy, the key component of the Nazi world outlook.

Dilling, spoke of“Ike the kike”and Kennedy’s New Frontier as the “Jew Frontier.” None of this prevented Beck being given the rare privilege of being invited to address Israel’s Knesset. Beck’s reception was akin to a “rock concert.” MK Michael ben-Ari, a Kahanist (who had previously torn up a copy of the New Testament) said after Beck had addressed the Knesset, “I think Glenn Beck should take my seat in the Knesset.” Like most anti-Semites Beck combined support for Zionism and Israel with hatred of Jews.

This is new to me, as while I was aware that Beck had some very right-wing views, I didn’t realise he had strayed into genuine anti-Semitic conspiracy theories or was promoting some of the most influential writers pushing them. This is more evidence that while the Israel lobby screams ‘anti-Semitism!’ at any liberal, who dares to criticise Israel, even if they’re actually supporters of the country, the real anti-Semites are all on the right, and particularly the Far Right.

Another fascinating piece of information in the article, which show how topsy-turvy the views of the Israel lobby are, is this little bit about how Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, came to suspect that Trump’s aide, Steve Bannon, was an anti-Semite. He complained that Kushner wasn’t tough enough in his defence of Israel.

For Netanyahu, the Likudniks and the other viciously racist parties in his coalition, you’re only racist if you don’t support Israel. And they appeal so much to genuine anti-Semites, that members of the Israel lobby in America – Kushner has extensive business interests in the Occupied Territories – that they secretly believe that Israel’s most passionate defenders have to be anti-Semites.

And this is the skewed mindset of the people vilifying genuine anti-racists like Jeremy Corbyn, Jackie Walker, Ken Livingstone, Mike, Martin Odoni, Tony Greenstein and others as anti-Semites!

One of the papers pushing the smear that Labour is infested with anti-Semites is the I. Their columnist, Simon Kelner, was accusing the Corbyn and the Labour party of being anti-Semitic way back last summer, because the party hadn’t adopted the I.H.R.C. definition of anti-Semitism. Or it had, but hadn’t adopted all the examples. There was a very good reason for that, which has not been repeated by the lying mainstream media: most of the examples are not about the real meaning of anti-Semitism, which is simply hatred of Jews simply as Jews, but attempts to define criticism of Israel, or at least some criticisms of Israel, as anti-Semitic. Kenneth Stern, a Zionist and one of the formulators of the definition, has spoken out against it in Congress for the way it is being used to prevent criticism of Israel.

In Friday’s issue, for 8th March 2019, the paper took the occasion of the EHRC’s statement that it might investigate Labour for anti-Semite to publish a piece by Richard Verber in its ‘My View’ column, entitled ‘How Anti-Semitism Poisons Labour’, subtitled ‘The party needs to tackle these conspiracy theories’. This claimed that ‘at the heart of the accusations against figures in the party are a series of conspiracy theories about Jews which are so ingrained that even good people (people who consider themselves to be anti-racism campaigners) can believe them.’ Verber goes on to say that in his article he explains the three most dominant.

Alarm bells about the bias and distortions in the article should go off with the statement at the end of the article that Verber was the communications director at the United Synagogue. As Israel-critical Jews have pointed out, this is the constituency of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, one of the organisations making the accusations of anti-Semitism against Corbyn and the Labour party. The Board explicitly defines itself as a Zionist organisation, which presumably reflects the bias of the United Synagogue. It does not represent Orthodox Jews, nor the third of the Jewish community that’s secular. And by definition, the Board doesn’t represent non- or anti-Zionist Jews. This is important, as several of the ‘examples’ of anti-Semitism Verber discusses are actually attempts to prohibit criticism of Israel, and discussion of possible Israeli interference in British politics as anti-Semitic.

Verber starts with the usual anti-Semitic conspiracy theory, which he defines as ‘there is a ‘new world order’, run by Jews, to control global finance and governments’. This conspiracy theory he traces from the publication of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. He stated that the ‘New World Order’ was originally a call for peace following the collapse of Communism. However, the conspiracy version was all about Jews infiltrating the American government from the late 1940s onwards. He states that at its heart was the belief that Jews and the Illuminati were plotting to have Communism take over the world. He then argues that this later morphed into the ‘globalists’ of modern far-right propaganda, international bankers is code for Jews, as is the name ‘Rothschilds’.

Now there is a considerable amount of truth in this article. The notion of a global Jewish conspiracy does indeed go all the way back to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and that Nazi and contemporary Fascist ideology does see the world as controlled by Jewish bankers. But it’s also a gross oversimplification. The Illuminati at the centre of modern conspiracy theories were a group of radical freethinkers, founded by Adam Weishaupt, who attempted to infiltrate the Freemasons in late 18th century Bavaria, resulting in their suppression by the Roman Catholic authorities. The Freemasons were subsequently blamed for the outbreak of the American and French Revolutions. The term ‘New World Order’ is taken from the motto of the American dollar bill, ‘Novo Ordo Secularum’, which also featured the Masonic symbol of the Eye in the Pyramid. It also gained notoriety in the 1990s after George Bush senior, the former head of the CIA, referred to a ‘new world order’ after the Collapse of Communism, at the same time as the first Gulf War. To many people, it seemed that there really was a secret conspiracy controlling the world. However some of those who believed this nonsense simply thought that the conspirators were the historical Illuminati, Freemasons and Satanists. They did not accuse the Jews. Of course the identification of the Illuminati with the Jews came shortly after the publication of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and was introduced into British Fascism by either Nesta Webster or Rotha Orne Linton. One of these ladies was an alcoholic and a spiritualist, who had been told by the Duc D’Orleans, communicating from the Other Side, that the Illuminati had been responsible for the French Revolution and all the others since. Michael Pipes, a Conservative American political theorist, traces the evolution of the conspiracy theory that the world is being run by a secret cabal from fears about the Freemasons to the Jews in his 1990s book, Conspiracy Theories.

The historical dimension to the development of this conspiracy theory needs to be taken into account, as there may still be versions that place the blame solely on Freemasons, the historical Illuminati and Satanists, rather than the Jews. And while Bush’s use of the term ‘New World Order’ might have been peaceful in intent, it came at a time when many people were rightly fearful of the massive growth of American power and the first war with Iraq. This was supposed to be about the liberation of Kuwait after its annexation by its northern neighbour. However, by its critics at the time it was seen as a ‘resource war’. Greg Palast discusses the invasion in his book, Armed Madhouse, and concludes that the war was fought for geopolitical reasons in which oil was a main factor. Another factor why the phrase ‘New World Order’ is also notorious is that it’s similar to Hitler’s pronouncement about the Nazis creating a New Order. One of the banned Nazi organisations in post-War Italy was L’Ordine Nuovo. Which means, well, guess what?

Verber gives as an example of this conspiracy theory in the Labour party Corbyn objecting to the removal of the mural by Mear One in 2012, This showed, according to Verber, ‘hooked-nosed Jewish bankers playing a board game on the backs of poor people. notes that Corbyn’s objection to the mural’s removal was revealed in 2018 by Luciana Berger, and quotes a spokesman for the Labour leader stating that he was simply responding to a freedom of speech issue, but that the mural was offensive, did include anti-Semitic imagery and should be removed’. And to prove it was anti-Semitic, Verber states that the artist admitted some of the figures were Jewish.

Some. The operative word here is ‘some’. In fact the mural depicts five bankers, three of whom are gentiles. While they look like anti-Semitic caricatures, they are portraits of real people. And if the mural was anti-Semitic, why did it take Berger till last year to accuse Corbyn of anti-Semitism for objecting to its removal? The mural does depict the bonkers conspiracy theory about bankers, but there is little overt in it which specifically targets the Jews as the main conspirators. The whole incident was another manufactured smear against Corbyn.

Lobster has posted a very interesting review by their long-term contributor, Scott Newton, of Richard Sakwa’s book on the current geopolitical tensions over Ukraine, Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands (London: I.B. Tauris). Sakwa is the professor of Russian and European Politics at the University of Kent. In this book, he tackles and refutes the story peddled to us by the mainstream media that the current confrontation between NATO and Russia and the civil war in Ukraine are due to Russian imperialism under Putin.

Sakwa is under no illusions how brutal and corrupt Putin’s regime is, but the book argues that in this instance, Russia is the victim. He argues that at the heart of the crisis is a conflict between two forms of Ukrainian nationalism. One wants a strong, united Ukraine centred firmly on Kiev, with Ukrainian as the sole official language, looking to the EU and the West, with its economy based on free trade and private industry. This form of Ukrainian nationalism is hostile to Russia, which is particularly resents because of the Holodomor, the horrific artificial famine created by Soviet collectivisation in the 1930s. The government is roughly liberal, but includes Fascists. The second form of Ukrainian nationalism is popular in the south and east, which are predominantly Russian-speaking, whose families and businesses have links with Russia, and which is dominated by heavy industry and reliant on trade with Russia. This wants a federal Ukraine, with both Ukrainian and Russian as the official languages.

The review discusses the origins of the Maidan Revolution, directed against the corrupt regime of Viktor Yanukovych, who had just signed a trade agreement with Russia. The nationalist regime which replaced him, led by Petro Poroshenko, was of the first, pro-western, anti-Russian type, was strongly influence by the Far Right, whose squads massacred anti-Maidan demonstrators. This regime set about demolishing Soviet-era monuments, establishing Ukrainian as the country’s only official language, and repudiating the agreement allowing Russia to station its ships in Sebastopol until 2042. As a result, Russia seized the Crimea, which had been Russian until 1954 and the Russian-speaking areas in the south and east seceded and split into different autonomous republics. Kiev responded by sending in troops, but this has led to a stalemate so far. The West supports Kiev, seeing Putin’s support of the Ukrainian separatists as the Russian president’s attempt to undermine the political order which emerged after the collapse of Communist in 1991.

Sakwa instead views Putin as reacting purely to preserve Russia from possible NATO aggression. This is the based on the original agreement with former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not expand into eastern Europe. Gorby also hoped to create a new international system in which the world would not be dominated by a single superpower, but there would be a number of different leading states, whose cultures and economic and political systems would differ. These difference would be respected, and they would all work together for international peace. This has been violated by the West, which has expanded eastward into Ukraine, which has also signed the Lisbon agreement with the EU. Putin’s response, which you don’t hear about, is to call for a federal, pluralist, non-aligned Ukraine, which cooperates with both Brussels and Moscow, and whose security is guaranteed by both sides.

There is also an economic dimension to this. The West wishes to promote laissez-faire capitalism. But this didn’t work when it was introduced into Russia by Yeltsin. This type of capitalism has been rejected, and 51 per cent of the Russian economy is owned by the state. Sakwa also notes that Putin has been active building up an alternative political and economic system across the globe, in eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Syria, and Cuba and Venezuela, as well as a system of alliances with the BRICS economies, as well as a Eurasian Economic Union with the former Soviet republics of central Asia. It is also cooperating with the China on the new silk road. The result has been that Russia has created a ‘second world alliance’ system with its own financial institutions and systems of international government.

Newton says of the book that

Sakwa’s argument that the Ukrainian crisis results from the destabilization of the country by forces committed to militantly anti-Russian nationalism, egged on by former Soviet bloc countries and external interference by the United States and the European Union, propelled by a dogmatic and triumphalist liberal universalism, is highly persuasive.

This is how it appears to me, from reading previous discussions of events in Ukraine from Lobster and other, alternative news sources. As well as the fact that if Putin really did want to conquer all of Ukraine, he surely would have been able to do so, and not stopped with Crimea and the east.

Newton also wonders why we haven’t seen Sakwa, with his impressive command of Russian and eastern European history, in the media.

There can be very few academics now operating who possess Richard Sakwa’s expertise in modern Russian (including Soviet and post-Soviet) international history. Why, then, do we not seen more of him in the mainstream media, both broadcasting and print? He has been on RT, discussing the Skripal poisonings amongst other things (no doubt leading some to suspect him of being an apologist for Putin, which he certainly is not). But I have never seen him on (for example) BBC or Channel 4 (this does not of course mean he has never been interviewed there but it does suggest that any appearances have been somewhat limited). Why? Is this an accidental oversight, or are his opinions deemed by news and current affairs editors to be ‘unhelpful’?

That’s a very good question. My guess, given how the anti-Putin view is just about the only one accepted and promoted by the media, including Private Eye, is that current affairs editors really do see him as ‘unhelpful’. And this amounts, as Newton discusses at the beginning of his review, to fake news and fake history.

One of the points Tony Greenstein, a determined opponent of all forms of racism and Fascism makes against Zionism is that it’s a Jewish version of anti-Semitism. Instead of believing that Jews and gentiles can live together in harmony, peace and friendship, it is based on the terrible view that this is impossible, and Jews must therefore have their own state. It’s a concession to gentile anti-Semitism, and Greenstein supports this arguments by quoting passages from modern Zionism’s founder, Theodor Herzl. Herzl believed that gentile resentment of Jews for emerging from the ghetto and joining and competing with them in wider society was natural. At one point in his writings he even talks about he came to ‘forgive’ anti-Semitism in Paris. And Greenstein also makes the point that some of the rhetoric Herzl used when arguing for a Jewish state is anti-Semitic.

In a post on the 10th January 2019, Greenstein wrote a piece illustrating just how anti-Semitic Herzl’s rhetoric could be with excerpts from Herzl’s text, Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State). This contrasted the wretched condition of modern, diaspora Jewry with the brave, new Jewish type that would come into being with his projected new state. Modern Jewry was represented by the ‘Y*d’, small, ugly, dark, cringing. The future citizen of the Jewish state, on the other hand, was the ‘Hebrew’, who was everything fine and noble: tall, strong, beautiful, proud. Now Herzl was clearly trying to improve the condition of the Jews, who were oppressed in eastern Europe. Herzl had originally been in favour of Jews integrating into wider, gentile society. But he turned against the idea after the ferocious pogroms of the 19th century which forced many eastern European Jews to flee abroad – to England and the United States, for example. But clearly the language used to describe contemporary eastern European Jews, the Yiddish-speaking masses of Poland, Ukraine, Romania and Russia, is very much that of the anti-Semites.

But it’s also similar to the rhetoric used by later Fascists – by Mussolini in Italy and Adolf Hitler in Germany – to express the contempt they also felt for their compatriots and their perceived failings, in contrast to the new Fascist type into which they wished to mould them. Mussolini several times rejoiced when conditions became harder for Italians, because it would, he believed, improve them by toughening them up. For example, he was very pleased at the cold winter of 1939-40, commenting ‘This snow and cold is very good. In this way our good-for-nothing Italians, this mediocre race, will be improved. One of the principal reasons I wanted the Apennines because it would make Italy colder and snowier.’ And when there was a coal shortage in January 1940, he was happy again, because it was good for them to be put to tests that would shake off their centuries-old mental laziness.

See Noel O’Sullivan, Fascism (London: J.M. Dent & Sons 1983) 66.

Mussolini blamed every failure in the War on the national character of the Italians, who were ‘a soft and unworthy people’, or a ‘people made flabby by art’. And when Speer told Hitler in March 1945 that the War was lost, both economically and militarily, Hitler declared ‘The nation has proved itself weak, and the future belongs solely to the stronger eastern nation.’

O’Sullivan, Fascism, 80.

O’Sullivan also has this to say about the Fascist project of creating a new breed of human:

The fascist ideal, by contrast, involved nothing less than the creation of an entirely new kind of man. The character of this man would be martial and heroic, with a will which recognised no obstacles. For that reason, Marxism, in fascist eyes, was no better than liberalism. It offered, that is, only one more materialist ideal, and by its stress upon the laws of history it deprived the will of its potential creative power. For the Nazis, racial theory implied that the new man was in fact already in existence, but lay buried by a mass of corrupt liberal, democratic and materialist values, which had therefore to be destroyed in order to reveal the Aryan prince hidden beneath them. For the Italian Fascists, on the other hand, the new man had still to be created.

O’Sullivan, op.cit., 74.

That monster, Heinrich Himmler, the leader of the SS who supervised and implemented the industrial murder of 11 1/2 million innocents – 6 million Jews and 5 1/2 million non-Jews in the concentration camps, was determined to bring the new type of Aryan German into existence through a creation of a special breeding programme, the creation of a different, Nazi society and the colonisation of the territories conquered from Poland and the USSR. The German historian of Nazism, Joachim C. Fest, thus describes his vile plans

It was his conviction that by systematically pursuing his policy, ‘on the basis of Mendel’s Law’, the German people could in 120 years once more become ‘authentically German in appearance’. To this end he put forward and partially implemented an alteration in the marriage to do away with monogamy. He had various plans for establishing a privileged SS caste, eliminating traditional standards of value and working out a system of limited educational and developmental opportunities for subjugated peoples. Within the national frontiers pushed three hundred miles to the east, towns were to be pulled down and that ‘paradise of the Germanic race’ created, of which splendid visions were continually conjured up by the Reichsfuhrer of the SS, and those of his followers who enjoyed his special confidence. A widespread network of defensive villages was also envisaged, not merely to make it possible for the members of the Order, the ‘New Nobility’ to maintain tehir dominant position by force and government, but also to re-establish the ancient contact with the soil.

Fest, The Face of the Third Reich (Harmondsworth: Penguin 1970) 175-6.

I am not claiming that Herzl was a Fascist or a Nazi. He was a secular democrat, who seems to have genuinely believed that the indigenous peoples of the area in which the new Jewish state was to be established could be peacefully removed from their ancient homeland. And I haven’t seen any evidence whatsoever that Herzl envisaged any kind of eugenic breeding programme, like that dreamed of by Himmler and the rest of the Nazis.

But Herzl was a nationalist, and like the revolutionary nationalists of the various eastern European nations struggling to gain their independence from the great empires in the 19th century, he demanded a radical break with the existing political order. And like the Future Italian Fascists, he saw the state as creating the nation. Mussolini declared of the relationship between state and people

It is not the nation that guarantees the state, as according to the old nationalistic concept which served as the basis of the political theories of the national State of the nineteenth century. Rather the nation is created by the State, which gives to its people, unconscious of its own moral unity, a will and therefore an effective existence.

O’Sullivan, ibid, 173.

The similarity between Mussolini’s attitude to the state and that of Herzl’s, even if the latter did not articulate it in so many words, is due to the similarity between the Italian and Jewish peoples. Italy had been forged through the conquest and amalgamation if different states, whose peoples had, it was believed, different national characteristics and who spoke different dialects. In 1911 the Italian Nationalist, Corradini, complained that there was as yet no national Italian language and literature. The new Italian people had also to be created by the national Italian state. Similarly, it can be argued that there is no single Jewish people. The Ashkenazi Jews of eastern Europe spoke Yiddish, a language derived from the middle Franconian dialect of medieval German. Sephardic Jews, on the other hand, speak Ladino, a language descended from Old Spanish. And this is quite apart from the Jews, who naturally spoke the national languages of the countries in which they had lived for centuries. Zionism’s opponents were keen to point out that Jews weren’t a nation, but a religion. In Britain they stated very clearly that like their non-Jewish countrymen, they were Brits. It was simply the religion that was different, not nationality.

Herzl wasn’t a Fascist, and it would be an anachronistic distortion to say so. Nevertheless, he shared certain attitudes with them, derived in part from their similar positions as radical nationalists, seeking in part to mould their peoples into a higher national type through state action. He shared Hitler’s and Mussolini’s contempt for their own peoples, which in Herzl’s case is expressed through language that is shockingly anti-Semitic.

And perhaps this is why Jewish anti-Zionists suffer so much harassment and truly vile abuse from the Israeli lobby. They are diaspora Jews defying this extreme nationalism to support a state to which they have no desire to emigrate, and which to them is often a terrible distortion of what they see as the true nature of Judaism and Jewish people. It’s a sharp reproach to Herzl’s ‘Hebrews’: the despised ‘Y*ds’, who should, when they’re not cringing and kowtowing to their gentle masters, be desperate to join their ranks with all the fervour of the ultra-nationalist. But they aren’t, and worse: they’re talking back.

In this clip from Sam Seder’s Majority Report posted yesterday, 4th March 2019, the very Jewish Seder and his team tackle two issues relating to Israel and its activities within the US. This is first about an Israeli private espionage agency operating in the US. The second is a Republican senator trying to argue that opposition to the Israeli state – anti-Zionism – equals anti-Semitism.

The story about the private Israeli espionage company comes from an article in the New Yorker. Apparently the company is allowed to operate in the US, providing that they don’t beat anyone up. But they have been sending intimidating emails and flyers trying to silence critics of Israel. They broke up when the Lemarr(?) investigation started, because they were involved peripherally with the Trump campaign. Seder’s co-host, Michael Brooks, says that the conduit was Newt Gingrich.

This is centred around a bill criminalising any kind of support for the BDS movement. Many states have already passed such legislation – New York, Texas – and the point to the terrifying story of the Texan speech pathologist, who lost her job. Seder states that the idea that the woman involved had spoken out of turn was very much belied by the facts. ‘But fortunately,’ says Seder ironically, ‘for those of us worried about anti-Semitism, Scott Perry, a Republican senator from Pennsylvania’s 10th district, basically sets those of us who may be critical of Israel straight.’

They then show a clip of Perry telling an official audience that they need to be careful about the parsing where you can see that you’re not for the government of Israel, but you’re for the Jewish people. ‘The Jewish people form the government of Israel. The state of Israel is formed by the Jewish people. And if you’re maligning the government and the state of Israel at the same time, they’re congruent. They are one and the same. They are the Jewish people. And I think that’s the biggest thing we can do.’

Brooks interjects that it’s a pretty anti-Semitic comment. Seder agrees, saying that not only is it anti-Semitic, it also seems to indicate accidentally that he doesn’t think there’s a democracy there. Seder explains that ‘we as Jews do not get together and vote on the state of Israel. I am Jewish. I have not been able to vote in any of the Jewish elections since the mid-60’s. ‘ He says of Perry that he’s incredibly ignorant about what he’s talking about. ‘He’s Jewsplaining to people’. Brooks says that this is who the modern alliance with Israel is built with. This is who modern Israel is friends with, all of the far right racist parties with the Likud on the left. Yair Lapide’s Yash Atid and Labor are centre right parties. Moretz is liberal and they’re totally marginalised. And there’s the Joint List, which fell apart, which were a couple of Arab and socialist parties. The Israeli government and foreign policy has really cultivated aligning with these people. When people like Olmert and Martin Barak said that they couldn’t have an apartheid state, and this is their words, although Brooks also uses it, they would say that it’s untenable in the long term because because, specifically, American Jews care about things like civil rights. And Netanyahu would agree, but say that there is also a whole set of people they can strike alliances with.

Seder agrees, and says that they wouldn’t need American Jewry if they had American Evangelicals. ‘Or’, says Brooks, ‘European neo-Fascists. Or, frankly, other countries like China or Russia that aren’t into human dignity questions.’

Seder has described himself as ‘the most Jewish person you know’ and his colleague, Brooks, is of party German Jewish descent. And like other critics of Israel, they’ve also been accused of anti-Semitism despite their Jewish heritage. But they’re right about this change in direction of Israeli politics.

Perry made his stupid equation between the Israeli state and government and the Jewish people because that’s what Netanyahu has done. He passed a law defining Israel as the state of the Jewish people, which automatically made Jews everywhere Israeli citizens, whether they wanted it or not. It would have horrified the Jewish opponents of Israel over a hundred years ago, who formed the majority of the Jewish community. They were afraid that the establishment of the Jewish state would mean that Jews would be looked upon as disloyal, and that their real allegiances were with the new, foreign, Jewish state. It’s the reason why the British Jewish establishment opposed the Balfour Declaration, pledging British support to the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine.

And Perry’s comments are anti-Semitic for another reason. Under the official definitions of anti-Semitism, you may not equate the actions of some Jews with the whole Jewish people. But this is what Perry has done, so by stating that Israel and the Jews are the same thing, he has made the entire Jewish community responsible for Israel’s crimes against humanity. Which is clearly false and anti-Semitic.

It’s also been reported elsewhere that the alliance between Israel and American Jews is breaking, because Jewish Americans do support civil rights. Young Jewish Americans are critical of Israel’s maltreatment of the Palestinians, including those who have suffered anti-Semitism personally. They’re turning away from Israel, with the result that the uptake of the Israeli heritage tours offered to young American Jews to take them to Israel and endow them with pride in the Israeli state is down by 50 per cent. Hence Netanyahu and his servants are turning instead to American Evangelicals, like Ted Hagee’s wretched Christians United for Israel.

And Israel is also forging alliances with Fascist and far right states and movements in Poland, Hungary and Ukraine, selling them arms. Which is why Stephen Pollard, the non-Jewish editor of the Jewish Chronicle, Jewsplained in the Guardian that the current government of Poland, which has banned any mention of Polish collaboration in the Holocaust, is not anti-Semitic

Haim Bresheeth is another Jewish critic of Israel. He’s put up a number of videos on YouTube covering the Jewish supporters of Jeremy Corbyn and their demonstrations of solidarity with him and against the anti-Semitism smears. In this video, posted on 20th February 2019, the academic and film-maker talks to the Iranian news service, Press TV about the Independents and particularly Joan Ryan.

The video begins with him telling the host that the only thing the Independents have in common is support for Israeli apartheid and the attacks on Gaza, and for wars everywhere. It that’s going to be their platform, and the founding eleven may be joined by one or two more, then Bresheeth states that he thinks they have no future. They are supporting another government, which is legally an apartheid government, is not going to bring voters to that movement.

The host asks Bresheeth for his response to her claim that she left Labour because of its anti-Semitism. Bresheeth states that he has been a member of the Labour party has been living in Britain for 45 years, and he has not met an anti-Semite, either in the Labour party or anywhere else in Britain. So they must be hiding so well it’s unbelievable. He’s not saying there are no anti-Semites in Britain, but they’re not in the Labour party. They’re more likely to be in UKIP. Joan Ryan was not only shown to be a friend of Israel, and is definitely not a friend of Labour, but she was working with Mossad people, Shai Masot, as shown in al-Jazeera’s documentary, ‘The Lobby’. They were plotting to bring down a British minister tells you just what Joan Ryan is about. She’s not the MP for North Enfield, she’s the MP for Mossad.

Readers of this blog will know the absolute contempt I have for the Iranian regime, its human rights abuses, corruption and oppression of that ancient nation’s working people. But, like RT, which is owned by Russia, it’s one of the few news broadcasters that’s actually telling the truth about the anti-Semitism smears.

Haim Bresheeth is not along when he states that he’s lived in this country without meeting an anti-Semite. Corbyn’s Jewish supporters in organisations like Jewish Voice for Labour, who are resolutely ignored by the media, have also said that, like him, they’re sure it exists, but they’ve never encountered it personally. Statistics show that only 3.6 per cent of the Labour have anti-Semitic views. In the Tories, it’s 3.9 per cent. And in UKIP it’s something like 4.2. per cent. I don’t know whether Masot really was part of Mossad, but it is certainly true he was conspiring to remove a Tory member of cabinet, Alan Duncan. Just as Ryan was shown manufacturing a fake anti-Semitism accusation against another Labour supporter, Jean Fitzpatrick. Ryan’s notorious advocacy of Israel at the expense of her own constituents is notorious in the Labour party, and earned her the soubriquet ‘the MP for Tel Aviv North’.

And I’ve no doubt that Bresheeth is also right when he says they stand for more wars everywhere. They all supported the Iraq invasion, and they are all desperate for there not to be a public enquiry, as this would no doubt expose their illegality, acquiescence and promotion of Blair’s lies. And as supporters of Israel, an apartheid state, they are definitely not anti-racists, no matter what they scream about anti-Semitism.

Domestically the Independents, or at least Chris Leslie, stand for supporting the Tory party against Jeremy Corbyn, privatisation, including that of the NHS, tuition fees, keeping the water companies private, destroying the welfare state, and more tax cuts for the rich at the expense of the poor. They are warmongering Tories, who have nothing to offer Britain’s working people, except possibly membership of the EU. There is absolutely no doubt that we should have bye-elections now, so that they can be voted out, and replaced with those, who really do respect the wishes of their constituents.